Thoughts on Change Management

Stepped out of my “comfort zone” a little last night and attended a networking & seminar event sponsored by PDXTech4Good group with a topic of Change Management. Typical meetings are centered around social media and I’m no expert in that area, but do want to broaden my horizons. Additionally, when there are “Change Management” initiatives at companies, typically HR (my profession) is involved…therefore a good enough reason to attend. Many in the group were from the non-profit world and also various degrees of knowledge in change management. The speaker (Todd Pitt, founder of Zero Strategist) was very informative on the subject and there are several “take aways” I had from this presentation:

1. Todd mentioned research had shown ONLY 1 in 4 change management initiatives succeed…on average 75% change management initiatives fail!!! Various reason were given from lack of continued leadership, limited resources, etc.

2. Training isVERY IMPORTANT part of change management process, vital for the success! When there are financial hardships in a organization, typically there are new initiatives to “drum up business”, but unless there is specific training to reinforce this new initiative, the initiative is doomed to fail.

3. Change Agent is important, but this change agent must partner with a Trust Agent. First time I heard this term, but a Trust Agent is a person that knows the organization inside/out, knows what people think, clear understanding of the business, products, budgets, etc. Learning from the trust agent before the change agent proceeds with change initiatives is important.

4. Social media is assisting in creating change from bottom, middle, top of organizations. Never before has there been so much communication by so many people to many others…all facilitated by social media….and faster than phone calls.

As the old saying goes, the only thing constant is change and whenever there are change initiatives, there needs to be a plan and project manager that coordinates the change. Training is vital to ensure not only communication about the change, but to ensure everyone is on board and will embrace the change. The meeting ended with the thought that much needs to be done in order to accomplish change, but we must change in order to survive.